


like blood from a stone.

by catalinacat



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Fairly dark?, M/M, Miscommunication, Misunderstandings, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Or Is It?, Pining, Soul Bond, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, This is — and I cannot stress this enough — melodramatic to the core, Threats of Violence, Unrequited Love, like I’m not sure how to tag this, so be aware of that going in
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:29:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25176181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catalinacat/pseuds/catalinacat
Summary: The thing about soulmates is, most people these days never find theirs.Or, soulmates, like everything of import in the Fire Nation, are a matter of honor.
Relationships: Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 28
Kudos: 216





	like blood from a stone.

**Author's Note:**

> Yet another zukka soulmates fic! Truly we, as a fandom, cannot help ourselves. 
> 
> This is wildly self-indulgent drivel written in one go, basically in a fever dream. So! With that resounding endorsement, read on!

It happens in an instant -- an accident during a friendly sparring match. It’s one of many they’ve had over the years, blades flashing in the sun and sweat beading on their brows.

Swordbending, Sokka still calls it, even after all this time. He’s grown into his role as ambassador, with an easy confidence and the skill to back it up, but the jokes flow just as freely as they ever did.

So, from time to time, when Zuko’s frown seems permanently etched into his face and the strain of leading a country out of a century of war weighs visibly heavy on his shoulders, Sokka will quirk an eyebrow and say, “Care for a swordbending duel, Firelord Hotman?”

It makes Zuko laugh every time -- though, in fairness, everything Sokka says makes him laugh. 

And so they spar, Zuko still favoring the dual dao to Sokka’s broadsword. Sokka has filled out over the years, grown a few more inches, and put on pounds of muscle. The power that he can bring to bear behind his sword is striking, and their duels always catch more than a few spectators. Zuko would just as rather spar in private, but Sokka is a ham to the last, and so they always go to the main courtyard. 

Sokka is playing to the crowd, throwing in spins and tossing his sword from hand to hand. They’re more dancing than fighting, with a fluidity borne of hours and hours of practice together. Zuko allows himself to get lost in it, in the glint of sun on Sokka’s dark hair and flex of his arms. He is, and there’s no point denying otherwise, distracted. And so, when Sokka stumbles on an uneven cobblestone, dropping heavily to one knee, Zuko is unable to fully redirect the slash he aimed at Sokka’s legs in time. He’s able to pull back, some, but his blade unmistakably encounters the thick flesh of Sokka’s thigh.

Sokka falls back onto the ground, clutching his leg. For a moment, Zuko can’t move, even amid the pandemonium around him. Then he comes to as Sokka cries out, snapping him out of it -- he turns to the nearest servant, shouts for him to find a healer, immediately. Then Zuko runs to Sokka’s side, pulling off his outer tunic and pressing it to the wound. 

Sokka’s breath is catching as he squeezes his leg and he seems panicked. If Zuko had been thinking more clearly, he might have found this strange -- in the scope of Sokka’s life, such a sparring accident, even if it turned out to be serious, should not have inspired a panic Zuko hadn’t seen in him even at Boiling Rock. 

But Zuko doesn’t notice, because he is focused on keeping his tunic firmly on the cut, and moderating his breathing -- he feels dangerously out of control at the moment. 

At that, a healer drops to the ground next to him, setting a kit at his side. 

“Thank you, Firelord, I will take it from here,” the healer says. “In a moment, I want you to remove your tunic from the wound, to allow me to see the extent of the cut. Depending on the severity, I may ask you to immediately place the cloth back on the wound. Can you do that?”

The healer spoke to him in low, soothing tones, and, as he nodded in answer to the question, Zuko distantly wondered if that meant that the terror he felt was visible on his face. 

“On three. One, two, three.”

At first glance, Zuko is relieved. The gash is long, running at an angle from the top of his leg near his hip several inches down and over towards his inner thigh -- but Zuko can tell, even though Sokka, still clutching his leg, is covering part of it with his hands, that it’s not especially deep. There’s blood, to be sure, and it will take many stitches to close, but there is no immediate danger. 

However, it is then that he notices the hush that has fallen. The crowd had been whipped to a frenzy in the chaos, tittering loudly in the way only nobility can. But after one hundred years of war, even the most nobly born Fire Nation citizens have seen far worse wounds than this -- the silence is strange.

Zuko finds himself looking back to Sokka, puzzled. But Sokka is acting just as strangely -- he had lost some blood, certainly, but not so much as to explain the pale look of his face. Sokka’s eyes dart down to his thigh, and Zuko follows his gaze.

Now that he is not focused on the wound, Zuko can see, exposed by the cut to his trousers and unable to be fully covered by Sokka’s bloodied hands, a curl of black ink on his skin. It is a shape he knows, like the back of his hand or the scar on his face. It feels as if it is someone else reaching out, pushing Sokka’s hand to the side. 

Zuko suddenly feels separated from his body, as if he is a million miles away from here, from this courtyard and the people in it. 

It is cut and bloodied, but there, on Sokka’s thigh, is unmistakably a soulmark in the shape of a flame and a wolf’s tooth. 

\---

The thing about soulmates is, most people these days never find theirs. During the war, there was so little free movement that, unless Agni blessed you with a match in your own village or city, there was little chance you would ever cross paths. Zuko had heard of those who, as soon as the war was over, began traveling widely with the express purpose of finding their soulmate. 

Even if he did have the freedom to do such a thing, Zuko had no interest in this. For starters, he had no faith that his fated, whoever they may be, would understand him -- if they weren’t immediately put off by the scar and the responsibilities and the fucking trauma, that is. No, he could count on two hands everyone in the world who would ever understand him in the ways that mattered, and he already knew them all.

And secondly, more importantly, Zuko had been in love with Sokka for years, and would always be in love with him. He knew this about himself with as much surety as he knew the sun would rise the next day. He didn’t care what fate had chosen for him, he would live out his days in solitude, and -- rather justly, he thought -- the blood of Sozin would end with him. His family’s line had brought little good to the Fire Nation or the world, and to continue it would be madness. This refusal to wed had been a point of contention amongst his ministers nearly from the moment he took the throne, but it was the only thing he would not be moved on. 

Lastly, everyone in the Fire Nation knows what the Firelord’s soulmark is. In the days following his coronation, a print had been industriously circulated by an unscrupulous healer who glimpsed the mark while tending to the injuries Azula had left him with. Zuko supposes his plan was to curry favor by finding the new Firelord’s destined love. He was quickly disabused of the notion and turned out from the palace. The result, however, was that it was therefore rather famously known that his soulmate must not be of the Fire Nation, because no citizen would ignore their duty to the Firelord.

Zuko knew his people well and agreed that this assumption was likely true. And so, after eliminating the Fire Nation, just statistically, he considered it most likely that his soulmate lived in some far-flung Earth Kingdom city. This was just as well, and Zuko had come to expect that he would live his whole life and never cross paths with whomever else bore the mark of a curve of flame, struck through with the long canine of a wolf. 

\---

Zuko supposes that, in truth, it was only a few moments that he sat quietly before Sokka, but it felt as if hours and days had passed as he rearranged everything he thought he knew of Sokka, of himself, and of their friendship. 

After the emptiness came the dread, and it was this, he knew, that was responsible for the hush that surrounded him. Then came the whispers.

_The ambassador? But they’re so close._

_How could he reject him?_

_Will the Firelord do it?_

There was a very strict code for these things -- as for everything important in their culture, there was a ritual to it, one that even the Firelord could not break. 

He had thought-- well, he had just thought that he would have more time than this. Even in his darkest moments, full of self-hate and condemnation, the thought of this happening never even crossed his mind. But it didn’t matter. It had happened. And perhaps, he should have known that it would end in such a way. It shamed him, more than perhaps anything else in his life ever had, but just for a moment he hated Sokka. 

_My father says Azula was born lucky. He says I was lucky to be born._

Ozai’s estimation of him turned out to be right, in the end. 

Zuko stood, slightly unsteady at first. He felt the eyes of the nobles on him, felt their pity thick in the back of his throat. He took a breath, and turned himself to steel for what he must do.

First, he turned to a servant. 

“Please find a scribe and direct him to write a letter to Lord Iroh. He must have the regency. I know he will find a worthy successor.” 

Zuko hesitated for a moment. If he had more time, he would want to say more, but the crowd had already seen far more of him than he could bear. He couldn’t expose any more of himself and still have the strength to do what needed to be done. So instead, he nodded shortly to the servant, who quickly left. 

At this, Zuko turned himself back to Sokka. He was still on the ground, the cut still bleeding sluggishly.

“Zuko,” he said, his voice straining, “I’m so sorry I never said, I didn’t--”

Zuko had to cut him off before he said any more. His honor had already been damaged beyond repair -- for the nobles to witness any further degradation was unthinkable. While he still had the authority to do so, Zuko said, “Everyone leave us.”

Sokka snapped his mouth shut as the spectators hurried away in a wave. He knew they were all headed in one direction -- there was only one place such a public humiliation could end. 

Now that they were alone, Zuko felt his panic ebb away. There was no more fear or anger. Perhaps this was the better way, actually. Zuko had always intended to be the last of his house to sit on the Fire throne . This was just-- moving the timeline up. And this way, Iroh would get to choose who followed him -- Iroh, who was always a much better man than him anyways. 

“Zuko, wait, but what are you saying about Iroh?” Sokka asked, his voice pitched high with confusion and worry. “What do you mean about a regency? What’s going on?”

Zuko knelt down next to him and brushed a strand of hair back that had escaped from Sokka’s wolftail. He allowed himself to be as tender as he always wanted to be, now that everything was in the open and his moments were numbered. 

Sokka’s eyes followed his hand and he sucked in shaky breath when Zuko brushed his skin.

“Zuko, tell me what’s going on -- you’re scaring me.”

So Zuko put a hand behind Sokka’s back to bring him to a seated position, then grabbed Sokka’s shoulders to pull him up. He stooped for a moment to pick up Sokka’s sword.

“Can you stand and walk?” he asked, “We only have to go a little way, the chamber isn’t far.”

“Zuko, I can walk just fine, but I need you to talk to me, I know I messed up, I’m sorry, I--” Sokka’s teeth chattered as he spoke.

“I don’t know how other cultures handle this -- perhaps the Fire Nation is alone in our ways,” Zuko cuts Sokka off. He needs Sokka to understand why this is happening, why it cannot end any other way, and why he has no reason to be scared. With an arm helping to support Sokka’s weight, he begins to walk them both in the direction of the chamber. 

“You’ve lived here long enough to know how important honor is to my people. It’s always been the most important thing to a man, often to our detriment. But I could no more change that about my people than I could change the stars in the sky -- it is who we are. For a soulmate to reject their match,” at this Sokka begins to protest, so Zuko pauses their steps and puts his free hand to the side of Sokka’s face, making the words die on his lips, “no, Sokka, you must listen to me, I need you to understand what has to happen now. Tell me you’ll listen.”

Zuko stares into Sokka’s eyes, willing him to understand the gravity of the situation. Sokka nods, mutely, so Zuko begins to walk again.

“While many of our people are content without ever looking for their match, for soulmates to meet and reject the match -- whether by words or by omission -- is seen as the ultimate insult. There is no greater disrespect in our culture. When it has fallen so far, there is only one way to restore your honor. And to do so, the victory must be total.”

Their steps have brought them to the doors of the chamber. He can hear a commotion inside -- the nobles have no doubt grabbed every person they passed on their way here. It’s not something that anyone would want to miss. 

Zuko had carefully been looking anywhere other than Sokka. But now, in front of the ornate doors, he looks into his eyes. He sees a dawning horror, and knows that Sokka has begun to understand. 

Zuko pushes open the doors with one hand, and the furor of the small crowd that has gathered in the stands falls to a hush. 

“Zuko, wait, there’s been a misunderstanding, I don’t think--” 

Putting his finger to Sokka’s mouth, Zuko gently shushes him. 

“No, don’t worry, Sokka. This is to the death, but I cannot kill you.” 

Zuko looks into Sokka's eyes, trying to commit his face to memory. He’s uncertain of what will wait for him in the spirit world, but he would take the image of Sokka’s eyes with him. Whatever else is there can’t be too horrible, not with this memory. 

“I cannot kill you,” Zuko says, “So you must kill me. It is the only way.”

He presses the hilt of Sokka’s sword into his hand. His arm hangs limply, Sokka’s eyes large and mouth open in shock. 

Zuko steps back from Sokka and turns to face him directly. 

“Sokka of the Southern Water Tribe, you have rejected the mark that we share, that Agni gave us. I challenge you to an Agni Kai.”


End file.
